About

No, my birth-name is not really Joecephus, it’s Joe. When I was signing up for twitter I was listening to some Hank Jr. and voila, though I think a few years before that I went to see a band whose bass player used the stage name Joecephus and I liked it.

I am the child of (legal) immigrants, I am Croatian by blood and American by the grace of God. I’m proud of my Croatian roots but I am truly blessed to have had those roots grow from the fertile soil of the greatest country on God’s Green Earth.

I am Cleveland born and raised and unlike many other Clevelander’s who high-tailed out of town after college, I’m still here. Much like Superman’s powers get weakened the further he strays from the Earth’s yellow sun — my powers of bitterness and jaded sarcasm diminish the further I stray from the southern shores of Lake Erie.

I am a Roman Catholic and I am a Conservative, though I don’t wave that banner anymore because of the way the definition has changed. One thing I am most definitely not, is a “Christian Conservative.” I find the moral statists in the hardcore religious right, those who love big-government when it pushes their religious agenda, to be a great disservice to the goals of Conservatism — which is spreading liberty. That being said, I find hard-core atheists and anarchists just as annoying, if not more.

Politics was not really something that was discussed in my household while growing up. My mother, who had immigrated to the USA as an infant was probably a JFK Democrat & my father who had came to the States in his early twenties didn’t really leave the former Jugoslavia because of communism as much as he just wanted the greater opportunities that America had to offer.

For myself however, the first three posters on my bedroom wall were Hulk Hogan, Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar and Ronald Reagan. I remember in the 6th grade during our mock election the whole class went for Michael Dukakis, while myself and my best friend Luke were steadfast in our support of George H.W. Bush.

Once I reached High School, that stuff was in the back of my mind. The first election I was eligible to vote in I didn’t even bother, though I did know that I hated both Clinton and Dole. Around that time I came to believe that I was a libertarian and in the Presidential election of 2000, knowing that Al Gore and the Democrats were awful and that George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservative” campaign talk was code for democrat-lite I voted for Harry Browne of the Libertarian Party.

Then September 11th happened.

I got caught up in the “We’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way,” rah rah attitude and became a blind George W. Bush apologist voting for him in 2004.

I used to have a blog called Right Wing Rebel, the highlight of my time blogging under that nom de plume, was when I got linked to the official campaign site of Fred Thompson, after posting my endorsement of him for President in 2008. I no longer own the domain name and don’t recommend that you go there to check out what’s there now. Many, not all, of my old Right Wing Rebel posts are archived on this blog and many of those I don’t even agree with anymore.

I grew tired about posting about absolutely nothing but politics all the time and “preaching to the choir,” that I dropped off and stopped.

Somewhere along the way, mostly due to the seemingly never ending stream of pine boxes draped in American flags being sent home from the Middle East, I slowly started to crack and go back to my earlier way of thinking.

In 2008, I choked back the vomit in my mouth and stupidly voted for John McCain. In 2012, I held my nose and cast my vote for Mitt Romney.

Donald Trump was the last straw. I had a whole lot of issues with Gary “bake the cake” Johnson, but for the first time since I cast my vote for Harry Browne in 2000, my conscience was clean on election day 2016.

My old site was all politics all the time, with some other stuff mixed in. This one is whatever the hell I feel like posting about with some politics mixed in.

I have tattoos, I love Heavy Metal, Outlaw Country, bluegrass, jam bands and almost everything in between.

I enjoy craft beer of both the micro-brewed and home-brewed varieties and I like to enjoy cigars and pipe tobacco.